When you create fictional characters and carefully craft their responses to your questions in way that conveniently leads to your next planned question (and so on until the inevitable victory is achieved), that is text book straw man arguing. That is precisely what Kreeft does in his laughable little book. Hell, the method he uses coupled with his obvious bias makes it nearly impossible to avoid straw man arguments.

The arguments are not misrepresented and so are not straw man arguments. Like you, I read what the other side likes to argue and Kreeft has not misrepresented them here. The 'carefully crafted responses' are not invented by Kreeft but are real arguments made to support the pro abortion stance. If you do not like the arguments, that is your choice but I've yet to see how they are misrepresented. Fictional characters don't essentially make their arguments straw men.

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Every charatcer in the book.

So Socrates did not have a method which he used to analyze moral issues? If you think Kreeft applied the method wrong, then kindly show where. If he did not apply it wrong, then the character of Socrates is fictional in context but not a straw man.

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And here you display your ignorance of the pro-choice argument for all to see. If you'd familiarize with folks like Trefil and Morowitz you would get much more sophisicated pro-choice arguments on the nature of personhood than Kreeft presents. He doesn't bother with such arguments either out of sheer ignorance or else just plain ol' intellectual dishonesty.

And if you'd familiarize yourself with Kreeft's REAL argument and guys like Francis Beckwith, you'd realize that personhood is not some legal concept relating to human rights as Trefil and Morowitz claim. It's the same stuff that Boonin argues, and to a lesser degree Thomson (though her stuff's a lot weaker,IMO). As for Kreeft, just because he did not address these issues in his tiny little book does not mean he does not understand them or that he's unable to refute them--that's an assumption on your part. Keep in mind that Kreeft is a philosopher and so approaches things on that level, not from a scientific standpoint. The thing about Trefil is that he's even admitted that before he did this research on embryonic development that he was fully pro choice, but actually took a more restrained position afterward, even claiming that the fetus' rights (after acquiring humanness in his own arbitrary definition) had to be weighed against the mother's.

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Well, the responses his gives to the softball questions he lobs himself are fine. The problem is that the responses his fictional characters give are not reflective of any argument that an actual pro-choice individual of any intellectual standing would make. It is easy to win the debate when you make up arguments for the other side.

The real question is are his character's answers TRUE. Granted, there is a controlled laboratory to work this dialogue in but the book is not meant to be an exhaustive issues debate. It's meant to apply certain Socratic methods to the abortion question and that's all. From that standpoint, I agree with you that he did 'fine'.

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Again, I'd suggest you try Trefil and/or Morowitz as a start if you are interested in tackling the debate honestly.

I appreciate the advice. I've looked into both. The issues of 'potential life', 'parthenogenesis', and 'blue print, not the building' are interesting but really have some holes and philosophical/logical leaps that make those position untenable imo. At any rate, I thought it was a cleverly written book that addresses the bottom floor of the abortion debate in an unconventional way.

I would go with "very dark." Blood bath implies a lack of story which is filled in by senseless killing where the deaths in "Deathly Hallows" are an integral part of the story line. Although I thought the ending a tad weak, the story on the whole is very strong. I blasted through the audio books in less than a week to prepare for the seventh book. Now that I've read it, I'm gonna go back and read the entire series again (actually read them). Once I'm done with that I should be able to pick a favorite.

If you haven't seen "Order of the Phoenix" yet, GO! It's definitely the best of the movies so far. Strange thing is, it was the weakest of the books. I guess that kinda makes sense. My favorite of the books (that have made it to the big screen) was "Prisoner of Azkaban" and that was certainly the worst of the five movies.

Ben

***SPOILERS***** mostly for the Order of the phoenix movie but a few minor ones for Harry Potter 7.

I said blood bath because she was knocking off so many characters. Plus over 50 namless people died at the end. I thought the last chapter should had been longer, she didnt explain what happend to the rest of the characters and it all seemed kind of cheesy.I did like the kids name though A.S.P. I also would have liked Ginny and Luna to have had bigger roles. But the book was great. I went and reread(listen to 5 and 6) all the books right before the 7th book came out. Plus watched all the movies again. I did go see Order of the Phoenix. I was disappointed. It was good, but I thought it was to choppy and rushed. It really needed to be 3 hours to be great.Plus I really didnt like the fight scene at the end. I hated the deatheater fight with them flying around in clouds of smoke. At the time I had no idea were they got that crap from. But you find out in book seven and even then there is only two people who can do it.Plus Dumbledore fight needed to be longer and there needed to be a better explanation of the prophecy.Thought Cho changs kiss was to long and didnt like her being the betrayer. I was really disapointed in Snapes flashback. After seeing it I was ready to give up on my theory of him and Lily. Anyways Im sad there isnt going to be anymore Harry Potter. It would nice if she started another series with Ted, asp or anyone really. Just having it in the same world would be nice.Kind of like the star treks.

For the people who like to read backwards***SPOILERS***** mostly for the Order of the phoenix movie but a few minor ones for Harry Potter 7

***SPOILERS***** mostly for the Order of the phoenix movie but a few minor ones for Harry Potter 7.

I said blood bath because she was knocking off so many characters. Plus over 50 namless people died at the end. I thought the last chapter should had been longer, she didnt explain what happend to the rest of the characters and it all seemed kind of cheesy.I did like the kids name though A.S.P. I also would have liked Ginny and Luna to have had bigger roles. But the book was great. I went and reread(listen to 5 and 6) all the books right before the 7th book came out. Plus watched all the movies again. I did go see Order of the Phoenix. I was disappointed. It was good, but I thought it was to choppy and rushed. It really needed to be 3 hours to be great.Plus I really didnt like the fight scene at the end. I hated the deatheater fight with them flying around in clouds of smoke. At the time I had no idea were they got that crap from. But you find out in book seven and even then there is only two people who can do it.Plus Dumbledore fight needed to be longer and there needed to be a better explanation of the prophecy.Thought Cho changs kiss was to long and didnt like her being the betrayer. I was really disapointed in Snapes flashback. After seeing it I was ready to give up on my theory of him and Lily. Anyways Im sad there isnt going to be anymore Harry Potter. It would nice if she started another series with Ted, asp or anyone really. Just having it in the same world would be nice.Kind of like the star treks.

For the people who like to read backwards***SPOILERS***** mostly for the Order of the phoenix movie but a few minor ones for Harry Potter 7

I have to disagree. I've never found a series of books that was a spin-off from another series that was worth a damn. It works for television, especially the Star Trek universe where the five series cover 300+ years, but I've never seen it work for books. I'm looking forward to the next J.K. Rowling series, but I really hope it's something fresh.

I also have to disagree with Potter 5. Rowling really didn't handle the whole Harry/Cho thing well at all, just letting it fade/fizzle (more like Harry forgot he had a girlfriend). Setting her up as the betrayer of the DA handles that situation better and eliminates 15 minutes of film time for of background work for a minor character. Granted, one of the strengths of Rowlings work is the way she uses minor characters, but Hollywood doesn't have time to develop minor characters for feature films. Really, OOTP did the best job of maintaining the story and eliminating the things that wouldn't play well on the big screen. Sure there were problems with it, but you'll never see a novel made into a book and not see differences. Usually glaring differences that completely ruin the enjoyment factor if you've read the book. I think the biggest adaptation challenges are still ahead of them in 6 and 7. "Half-Blood Prince" could be very good or very bad but my expectations for "Deathly Hallows" are very low. There is so little they can afford to cut out and leave the story intact that unless they make it 3-4 hours long it's probably gonna suck.

Anyone read Tony Dungy's Quiet Strength? It looks like it could be a great inspirational book. Just wondering how much of the book is Christian-focused, and how well I would enjoy it, being a non-Christian.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the Artemis Fowl books (at least so far). I checked out the first one on a whim and the second one because the first was so good. I've got the third, fourth and fifth on hold now.

I'm nearly done with the Artemis Fowl books (at least those that have been published so far) and have been comletely entertained. Anyone who likes well written "kid" books and can withstand somer mildly juvinile fart humor should give them a go. Next up is the "His Dark Materials" series by Philip Pullman, starting with "The Golden Compass." After that I'm back to the "Sword of Truth" series by Terry Goodkind. I've read the first three (out of 11, so far) and while it's not the best fantasy fiction I've ever read, it's been but good enough (so far) to keep my interest.

We have people coming into the bookstore I work in asking for the 3rd ALL the time. He hasn't written it yet and no one knows when. Just a heads up!

It's all good. I've been waiting for the third part of Melanie Rawn's "Exiles" series, "The Captal's Tower" since 1997. According to http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk it's not due out until 2009. There's lots of good fiction out there so I can wait.

Just finished "The Amber Spyglass" (part 3 of "His Dark Materials) and was absolutely blown away! That series is one of the top five works of fiction I've read in the last decade. Now, if they'll just do them justice in Hollywood. "The Golden Compass" is due out in Dec. but I've got this terrible feeling that they're going to do a composite of all three books and that never works.

Currently reading Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full and it is excellent, remarkably well balanced and very thorough. A great addition to the scholarship in this area, right up there at the top alongside Stephen Ambrose's super 3 volume series.

Well, I just got back from a visit to the internet movie database and I found out that "The Golden Compass" is not going to be a composite of the three books (part 2 of the series "The Subtle Knife" is due out in 2009). I am now officially pumped to go see this one! Anyone else looking forward to it?

I'm just finishing up (actually reading, not the audio books) "Regeneration" by Julie Czerneda. It's the third part of her "Species Imperitive" series and all three are very good Sci-Fi.

"The Sword of Truth" series stagnates a bit with the fourth book. I'm hoping it'll pick up again but I've taken another break from it to do "The Sword of Shannara" by Terry Brooks and "Blaze" by Richard Bachman (Stephen King). "The Sword of Shannara" started out very derivitive (basically "The Fellowship of the Rings" without a ring and with different character names) but got much better as the story moved on. "Blaze" is simply a great read (or listen this time through).

anyone read any of these? riend is selling a bunch, and I want to pick up some. any reviews would be nice....need to see if i want to read them/ what order!

The Gunslinger series by Stephen King

The Icewind Dale Trilogy

The dragon Riders of Pern series (8 books)by Anne McCaffery

The Elf Stones of Shanhara series (6 books) by Terry Brooks

The Dragon and the George/THe Dragon on the Border by Gordon *****on.

Also the Wheels of Time series....Anyone read all of them, how are they?

thanks!

"The Gunslinger" is the first book in the "Dark Tower" series and the series is awesome. There are several other books that tie in, "Insomnia," "The Eyes of the Dragon," and "The Stand" are just three of them (if you want a complete list, let me know).

I haven't read the "Icewind Dale" books, but I've yet to see anything based on a video game that was ever really good.

There are over 20 Pern books. The original Pern storyline is extremely good and very much worth the time to read while the others are hit and miss. The ones you reall need to read are, "Dragonflight "Dragonquest" "The White Dragon" "All the Weyrs of Pern." All the other Pern novels revolve around these four.

The original Shanhara series is only three books. "The Sword of Shannara," "The Elfstones of Shannara," and "The Wishsong of Shannara." The others are additional to the original trilogy. I've read "The Sword of Shannara" and found it to be good, but not all that.

I haven't even heard of the next two you mention. I'll have to check them out.

Don't bother with "The Wheel of Time." They're dry and slow paced and so blatently derivative that Robert Jordan should be paying royalties to other authors.

Of all the books listed, I would read "The Dark Tower" first. One of the best surrealistic fantasy series ever written. In fact, I'm currently going through the series again on audio book. This will make my third complete reading (twice in print, once in audio) and I've read "The Gunslinger" more times than I can remeber.

On another note. I recently read "Stardust" (the one they based the movie on) and it was totally, completely, wonderfully awesome. I haven't deen the movie yet, but if it's one-fourth as good as the book it's gonna be good.

Up next (in print) is "The Spiderwick Chronicles." I've heard good things, so I figured I'd give 'em a shot.

"The Gunslinger" is the first book in the "Dark Tower" series and the series is awesome. There are several other books that tie in, "Insomnia," "The Eyes of the Dragon," and "The Stand" are just three of them (if you want a complete list, let me know).

There are over 20 Pern books. The original Pern storyline is extremely good and very much worth the time to read while the others are hit and miss. The ones you reall need to read are, "Dragonflight "Dragonquest" "The White Dragon" "All the Weyrs of Pern." All the other Pern novels revolve around these four.

The original Shanhara series is only three books. "The Sword of Shannara," "The Elfstones of Shannara," and "The Wishsong of Shannara." The others are additional to the original trilogy. I've read "The Sword of Shannara" and found it to be good, but not all that.

Don't bother with "The Wheel of Time." They're dry and slow paced and so blatently derivative that Robert Jordan should be paying royalties to other authors.

That would be great if you can give me a list of all the books (Dark Tower). A friend at work is selling a ton of books to the lib. so I get first pick of them. I haven't heard of a lot of them, so I figured I would ask. I just started the Shanhara series, have heard good things about it. Friend said the Pern series was really good in some books and kinda odd in others. Thats what I was worried about with "wheels of time" have heard sooooo many people say good things about them, but have had just as many say they are so dry and slow. (good thing I held off on that series!)